Royal Canal November

I said here that I did not know whether there was a plaque to commemorate the drowning of fifteen people on the Royal Canal in 1845. I am grateful to both Ewan Duffy and Niall Galway for telling me that there is a plaque and for sending photos of it. Ewan’s, which I show below, was taken in 1997.

The plaque in 1997 (copyright industrialheritageireland.info)

Niall has sent on a message from the Royal Canal Amenity Group chairman:

A Mass in memory of the 16 people who lost their lives on 25 November 1845, when a passenger boat sank on the Royal Canal at Clonsilla, will be
held in St Mochta’s Church, Porterstown Road, at 10.00 am on Friday next 27 November 2015. After the mass you are invited to Porterstown (Kennan) bridge to lay a wreath and afterwards to the Clonsilla Inn for a tea/coffee.

I know that Ruth Delany gives the figure of 16 deaths, but all the newspaper reports that I have read say that 15 people died: 7 men, 6 women and 2 children, all from the second-class cabin.

Addendum 23 November 2015: I have now read some more newspaper reports and I think the discrepancy arises because early press reports of the accident itself, notably that carried in the Freeman’s Journal, said that sixteen people had died, but reports of the inquest gave the number as fifteen. The pre-inquest reports were inaccurate in other respects too: the total numbers of passengers were wrong and the chain of events that led to the accident was not properly described.